RNRL zooms 35%

After starting the day on a quite note, the Sensex swung in and out of the positive zone in morning trades before surging to new highs. The index opened a tad (four points) higher at 16,352, slipped to a low of 16,308, but rebounded later on the back of fresh buying in select heavyweights.

The buying gained momentum in late noon trades and the index rallied to a fresh all-time intra-day high of 16,617 - up 308 points from the day's low.

The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 216 points at 16,564.

The BSE Oil & Gas index soared 3.5% to 9340. The Realty index surged 1.5% to 9183, and the Auto index gained 1% at 5193.

The market breadth was negative - out of 2,843 stocks traded, 1,629 declined, 1,166 advanced and 48 were unchanged today.

INDEX MOVERS...

Reliance zoomed 3.8% (Rs 82) to Rs 2,274. Bharti Airtel soared 3% to Rs 918, and SBI surged 2.8% to Rs 1,808.

Reliance Communications, Reliance Energy, Grasim, Hindustan Unilever, Maruti and ONGC rallied 2% each to Rs 579, Rs 1,010, Rs 3,447, Rs 219, Rs 930 and Rs 923, respectively.

Wipro, TCS and HDFC advanced nearly 1.5% each to Rs 440, Rs 1,015 and Rs 2,372, respectively.

Larsen & Toubro, Tata Motors, Infosys and BHEL were up over 1% each at Rs 2,783, Rs 741, Rs 1,822 and Rs 1,966, respectively.

Reliance Natural Resources (RNRL) zoomed 35% (Rs 20) to Rs 77 amid reports that the company has sought permission to start gas distribution service in Mumbai & Delhi.

...AND THE SHAKERS

ITC shed 1.6% to Rs 191, and Hindalco slipped 1.4% to Rs 160.

Cipla and NTPC were the other prominent losers at Rs 167 and Rs 187, respectively.

VALUE & VOLUME TOPPERS

Ambuja Cements topped the value chart with a turnover of Rs 1,081 crore followed by Reliance Natural Resources (Rs 673.50 crore), Reliance Petro (Rs 437.50 crore), Reliance (Rs 194.50 crore) and IFCI (Rs 170 crore).

Reliance Natural Resources led the volume chart with trades of around 9.53 crore shares followed by Ambuja Cements (7.05 crore), Tata Tele (3.50 crore), Reliance Petro (2.89 crore) and IFCI (2.05 crore).